A Burtonsville man is facing a first-degree murder charge after Montgomery County detectives say he paid another man to gun down 23-year-old Jonah Kimindu Mutua in broad daylight in a Silver Spring apartment complex parking lot last year. Bekine Tibebu Ayele has a bond hearing scheduled for Tuesday at 1 p.m. and is currently held at the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit.
According to DC News Now, detectives determined that Ayele and Douglas David Lacey conspired to kill Mutua, with Ayele allegedly hiring Lacey to carry out the shooting. The Montgomery County Department of Police announced Ayele’s arrest in connection with Mutua’s murder, and he now faces a first-degree murder charge tied to the killing.
The shooting happened around 11:04 a.m. on March 8, 2025, in the 2700 block of Fairdale Terrace, near the White Oak commercial corridor in eastern Silver Spring, an area that sits close to major commercial and transit routes, per Daily Voice. Officers responded to the parking lot minutes after 11 a.m. and found Mutua suffering from gunshot wounds.
A Bystander’s Effort and a Ruled Homicide
A good Samaritan and responding police officers performed CPR on Mutua at the scene before Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service personnel pronounced him dead, according to Patch. The same outlet's report notes emergency dispatches were triggered around the same time as the shooting itself. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore later conducted an autopsy and officially ruled Mutua's death a homicide caused by gunshot wounds, the Daily Voice reported.
In the days after the killing, Crime Solvers of Montgomery County offered an anonymous reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest and indictment, according to a statement from the Montgomery County Government. Mutua, described by the National Gun Violence Memorial as a longtime local resident, had attended Fairland Elementary School, Benjamin Banneker Middle School, Paint Branch High School, and Towson University.
Tracking Down the Alleged Gunman
Homicide detectives with the Major Crimes Division identified Lacey as a suspect and, after developing physical and investigative evidence linking him to the shooting, obtained an arrest warrant for him on April 2, 2025. Two days later, members of the U.S. Marshals Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, working alongside Montgomery County and Prince George's County police officers, arrested Lacey in Upper Marlboro without incident, the Montgomery County Government said in a statement. He was taken into custody nearly a month after the shooting and remains behind bars under an indictment for Mutua's murder.
It was only in the months that followed that investigators developed evidence pointing to Ayele as the man who allegedly arranged and paid for the hit, transforming the case from a fatal shooting investigation into a targeted murder-for-hire conspiracy, per The MoCo Show. The dossier of evidence gathered by Major Crimes detectives has not been made public, and the underlying motive between Ayele and Mutua remains an open question, as do the specific financial or personal terms of the alleged arrangement.
What Ayele and Lacey Could Face
Both men now face first-degree murder charges, which under Maryland law automatically applies to premeditated killings including contract hits, according to FindLaw. A conviction carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, since Maryland repealed capital punishment in 2013.
The case emerges amid a modest rise in homicides across Montgomery County. The county's 2025 crime summary, released in March, showed homicides increased from 20 in 2024 to 24 in 2025 even as overall violent crime and shootings fell by 10 percent, The MoCo Show reported. County police cleared 21 of the 24 homicide cases recorded that year.
